Welcome to the third installment of The Long(ish) Read: an AD feature which uncovers texts written by notable essayists that resonate with contemporary architecture, interior architecture, urbanism or landscape design. In this extract from The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1849 and considered to be John Ruskin's first complete book on architecture, his studies are distilled into seven moral principles. These "Lamps" were intended to guide architectural practice of the time, advocating a profound respect for the original fabric of existing buildings. The opening chapter—The Lamp of Sacrifice—attempts to "distinguish carefully between Architecture and Building," set against the backdrop of Ruskin's (often criticised) world-view on the discipline at large.
John Ruskin in brief
Born in London in 1819, Ruskin was an art, architecture and society critic who, throughout his eighty-one year life, painted, wrote and campaigned for (widespread) societal change. Although not an architect himself, he lived through the height of the British Empire with Queen Victoria at its helm, and helped to pioneer the proliferation of the Romantic and Gothic Revival movements in England. He would later write The Stones of Venice (1851–53), for which he is most well known.
